Wikkan, Unni (2002) Generous betryal. Politics of Culture in the New Europe.

From Wikiversity

In her book, Uni Wikkan raises the question of how culture is interpreted and used in contemporary Norway and other European countries. After listening to stories and taking part in discussions with, among others, immigrants, social worker, teachers, Wikkan reached the conclusion that the discourse of culture become a problem in Norway (75). She argues that Norwegian immigration policy has been constructed around premises such as “’we’ should respect ‘their culture’ whereas ‘they’ should abide by the laws of the state” and in cases of conflict between the two, state law should prevail (70). Furthermore, Wikkan asks these questions: Who are those immigrants the government had in mind when writing the immigration policy? For how long does a person belong to the category of immigrant? According to the author, it seems like the policy is based on the assumption that every individual belongs to one culture and has one identity (72). Such essentialist understanding of culture and identity has been under great critique in academic disciplines within the social sciences and humanities. A more social constructivist understanding of culture and identity, in which people are seen as belonging to several dynamic cultures and where identities are understood as negotiated, multiple and dynamic, has taken over the discourse.

Wikkan writes that culture compromises the sum of learned or acquired knowledge and experiences among a collective of people – it is the total sum of all experiences (80). Moreover, culture is not transmitted, since it is always changing (80). Cultures are created and negotiated throughout the interaction between people and should not be seen as thing in themselves. The author also argues that culture is not entitled to be respected for its own sake (77). Moreover, a person is never a product of one culture or religion (82).

In my opinion, if a person is to follow Wikkan, culture should be seen as socially constructed and dynamic: culture always changes and it is never stable. Therefore, it is not possible to “save” or “preserve” a culture and, as Wikkan argues, culture should not be respected in itself. Moreover, such a view of culture means that ancestors or parents cannot and should not have monopoly of defining culture – culture is just as much in the hands of the children who negotiate it in relation to their own experiences and knowledge (78). It also follows that culture should not be in the hands of some men in the community - women and children need to take and be given a voice (78). Moreover, the Norwegian state is guilty of applying double standards, as culture is applied only to “them”, the immigrants, but never to “us”, the Norwegians (81). Immigrants are seen as products of culture, and this way of applying culture to “them” but not to “us” can be understood as racist (81). Culture is used to pursue particular interest and to build barriers between people (82).

The conflict between the respect for immigrants’ cultures and respect Norwegian law can also be understood as a conflict between collective and individual rights. The Convention on Human Rights is based on moral individualism and accords each human being the inviolable right to have her dignity respected (74). Susan Moller Okin has also raised the question in the book “Is multiculturalism bad for women?”, which created a lively discussion. Like Wikkan, she argues that by defending the rights of groups to preserve their culture, the rights of women (and children) are sacrificed. When culture is understood as a thing, it can be used to defend all kinds of special interests (79). Those interests are usually those of the more powerful men in the group. The risk of giving rights to groups rather than to individuals, therefore, ignores the dimension of power within a group and legitimizes oppression done inside a group. Wikkan writes that “Norwegian authorities have actually helped men attain a position of power far beyond what many of them held “back home”” (80). By regarding the definition of culture to be only what some spokesmen of a community think is “true”, the state empowers those already strong and neglects the weaker (80).

Kulturmöten och kulturkrockar

In the culture discourse, concepts such as “meetings of culture” or “clashes of culture” have been used to explain experiences in contemporary society. Wikkan argues that such concepts are misleading: cultures can never meet, since culture lacks agency. (83). People, not culture, are the ones with the power to act (and to meet or clash). She argues in favour of placing agency back where it belongs, which is with human beings having the power to act and use the power for good or bad (83). Culture does not make people think; people can think about culture and formulate their truths, depending on their perspective (84). Although the power of acting is in the hands of human beings, not everybody has equal access to power. As Wikkan points out, culture and power seem to come together (84).

Instead of using the concept of culture, Wikkan favours the use of custom, as it is a more dynamic and less bounding concept (85). Furthermore, one should avoid using the noun culture as it can easily appear to mean a one and true culture instead of the aforementioned dynamic and negotiated understanding of culture. Wikkan also raises a number of problems with the culture concept (87-88).

• Culture is a concept, not a thing; although it refers to real phenomena, it has no autonomous or material existence. • Like most concepts, it can be filled with various contents; there is no objective definition. There is, however, a broad consensus within anthropology of culture used as an analytic concept referring to the “distinctly human” – that is, to the knowledge and experiences people acquire by virtue of their membership in society. Hence, children’s experiences of the society where they live in are as much part of culture as that of the adults. • Culture has no agency – only humans and other sentient beings have the power to act. • Neither does culture have any power – beyond what people attribute to it. • Culture is often portrayed as if it was immutable, whereas all human activity, all conceptual activity, is subject to change; hence, all cultural things change. • Culture is often portrayed as if it possesses uncontested and uncontestable authority, whereas authority actually rests with those who hold power. Some people have the right – or seize the right – to define what is counts and for what, and it results in an authoritative “truth” often called culture. Culture and power go hand in hand, in every society, at all times. • Culture is an exoticizing device. It plays upon and exaggerates differences. Thus culture easily becomes a distancing strategy. Culture is usually taken to mean difference, not difference and similarity. • By exaggerating external difference, internal differences between the members of the group are downplayed, and the picture that emerges is one of cultures (plural) at odds with one another. In reality, there are numerous important differences internally as well as ties that connect (or can be used to connect) externally. • Culture plays down the internal differences among members of a group and thus gives a false picture of homogeneity.

In her book, Wikkan, brings up and discusses several lifestories of women that have been sacrificed by the state in the name of culture, both in Norway and Sweden.

In the cases she described, the men enjoyed the freedom and social justice of a liberal welfare democracy. Wikkan questions are: freedom for whom? What are the limits of tolerance? Who has the right to become “Swedish” (or “Norwegian”)? And, as she writes, “How to respond to the idea that becoming Swedish is a sin when it is precisely by being Swedish that the nation has been able to develop as it did and offer freedom and social welfare to immigrants from other countries?” (94).

However, saying that the murders and violence directed towards women of immigrant background is cultural runs the risk of stigmatizing a whole cultural group in which many may not agree with actions done in the name of their culture. But, on the other hand, Wikkan writes that we cannot do away with “culture” in our attempt to make sense of what is at stake (97). Still, it is important to recognize that the “culture”, as defined by parents or other spokesmen, is not necessarily the culture of the girls or women in danger. Moreover, the women and girls need to find and be given a voice in the debate (100). And if women and girls do gain a voice, they need support from others and should not to be ignored like it happened in some of the cases described by Wikkan.

Some scholars argue that the clash is not between an “immigrant” culture and a Western European culture but between urban and rural cultures (105). But as Wikkan points out, it is not cultures the ones that clash, but people, and people have the power to choose. It is neither culture nor religion the ones at stake, but the rights of individuals, the limits of control and coercion in groups such as family, ethnic communities or nations (107).